The Dealmaster: a quick 256GB SSD at a great price

We also have some laptops, some keyboards, and a wide-angle 24" monitor!

A good morning to you, Arsians! It is I, The Dealmaster, and once again I sally forth with savings in my saddlebag! This Monday, I present to you another list of fine items at fine discounts, plucked from LogicBuy's long lists by me, The Dealmaster, who only occasionally refers to himself in the third person.

We lead off with a nifty OCZ SSD as the top deal of the week, but that is only the tip of the Value Iceberg. Read on for more tremendous deals!

Interesting. My first SSD recommendation is to find the cheapest Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4* at the capacity you need. Both of these are on sale often nowadays, particularly with the release of the Samsung 840/Pro.

What's with the OCZ negativity? I've been using a 256GB Vertex 4 since they dropped to $179 a few months ago, and I've put two 128GB Vertex 4's into computers that I've built for friends. They're all damn fast, and I haven't been able to find one that benches any faster for anywhere near the same price.

The 830 is still considerably more expensive, and the M4 isn't anywhere near the speed of a Vertex 4, so why is an OCZ drive a bad choice?

Is the Polk 8" sub really that great of a deal? Its $112 from TD, but you can go to Newegg.com right now and the Polk 10" sub (PSW10) for $99 with free shipping. If you wait for their deals that Newegg usually has, the 10" sub often goes down to $89.

And for $12 more than TigerDirect ($124), you can get the Dayton Sub-1200 (a 12" sub) which is superior to both Polk subs above (from parts-express.com).

In any case, the 8" sub doesn't seem that great of a deal. Just because it has a high MSRP doesn't mean that the deal is good.

I've mentioned this in another thread but I'll post it again here. You can get the $39.99 Windows 8 Pro Upgrade for as low as $15 if you go to http://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com and fill out the form. Of course, this offer is intended for people who bought a PC recently with Win7 installed but if you fill out the form with the right details, MS will e-mail you a promo code for $25 off the price for the upgrade. I ended up buying two upgrade keys at this price. Apparently the limit is 5 per customer.

What's with the OCZ negativity? I've been using a 256GB Vertex 4 since they dropped to $179 a few months ago, and I've put two 128GB Vertex 4's into computers that I've built for friends. They're all damn fast, and I haven't been able to find one that benches any faster for anywhere near the same price.

The 830 is still considerably more expensive, and the M4 isn't anywhere near the speed of a Vertex 4, so why is an OCZ drive a bad choice?

The 830 has been sub-$80 for 128GB and sub-$170 for 256GB multiple times in the recent past, that's why the OCZ is a bad choice imo. Superior reliability at a comparable price.

I've mentioned this in another thread but I'll post it again here. You can get the $39.99 Windows 8 Pro Upgrade for as low as $15 if you go to http://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com and fill out the form. Of course, this offer is intended for people who bought a PC recently with Win7 installed but if you fill out the form with the right details, MS will e-mail you a promo code for $25 off the price for the upgrade. I ended up buying two upgrade keys at this price. Apparently the limit is 5 per customer.

I have 3 OCZ ssd drives. For the prices they go down to then it is a lot cheaper than other products. So far none of mine have failed (in 1 laptop and 2 boxes). If I get a year out of them then I dont think that is too bad, most people buying now are getting them as stopgaps or just boot drives until prices really plummet. In 6 months PCI based SSD will be at parity with the SATA3 kit of today, so if it dies then replace it with something a lot faster .

Besides, If your SSD does die in 1 year then it is under warranty, OCZ doesnt seem to have a fixed length but I think it varies from 2-5 years depending on the model (mine are cheap so probably only 2 years)

The Newegg page for the Agility 4 256 GB had at one point more than 50% one star reviews--basically all DOA's. It's improved a little since the last time I looked at it, but you're still taking a risk for buying at that price.

Ye I'm not sure why all the bad beef on OCZ, I've got over 30 256 AgilityIII 's running just fine. Albeit they're only 6 months old but the supplier is duty bound to a 3 year warranty, so if they're happy to do 3 years I guess all they shoudl be fine. Furthermore they're fast as f&*k!

Ye I'm not sure why all the bad beef on OCZ, I've got over 30 256 AgilityIII 's running just fine. Albeit they're only 6 months old but the supplier is duty bound to a 3 year warranty, so if they're happy to do 3 years I guess all they shoudl be fine. Furthermore they're fast as f&*k!

Unfortunately long warranties don't help with missing data. Just ask all the people who bought Deskstars.

Ye I'm not sure why all the bad beef on OCZ, I've got over 30 256 AgilityIII 's running just fine. Albeit they're only 6 months old but the supplier is duty bound to a 3 year warranty, so if they're happy to do 3 years I guess all they shoudl be fine. Furthermore they're fast as f&*k!

Unfortunately long warranties don't help with missing data. Just ask all the people who bought Deskstars.

That's a weak argument. Even with "good reputation" drives people need to be backing up their data.

I'm not an expert, but after seeing this deal I read the AnandTech review and it sounds like the Agility4 isn't a great drive for many uses. Something about the Agility 4 slowing down a bunch when the drive is more than 25% full.

Sadly count me among those who had OZC fail, twice. On the v2 and this v4. Both times they were less than one year old and OCZ replaced them without question but I will not trust these two models for critical stuff. I have a Samsung for over a year and knock on wood it will continue to run great

"Ghostery prevented a redirect fromarstechnica.com to ad.doubleclick.net,which is part of DoubleClick."

For the OCZ Agility 4 link. And I woulda gotta away with it too if it wasn't for you damn nosey kids!

TenWind:

"I've been using a 256GB Vertex 4 since they dropped to $179 a few months ago..."

So I guess the retail price quoted is a bit inflated, as usual. Retailers love to do this, used to be $500 ...back in 2008, yeah, but regular current retail price may only be slightly above the sale price.

I've mentioned this in another thread but I'll post it again here. You can get the $39.99 Windows 8 Pro Upgrade for as low as $15 if you go to http://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com and fill out the form. Of course, this offer is intended for people who bought a PC recently with Win7 installed but if you fill out the form with the right details, MS will e-mail you a promo code for $25 off the price for the upgrade. I ended up buying two upgrade keys at this price. Apparently the limit is 5 per customer.

If you're going to commit fraud, why bother paying?

Because paid-for versions of windows tend to work a lot better than pirated ones.

Interesting. My first SSD recommendation is to find the cheapest Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4* at the capacity you need. Both of these are on sale often nowadays, particularly with the release of the Samsung 840/Pro.

My second recommendation is to avoid OCZ.*Intel, Plextor and Kingston after those

No, no and no.

Intel, plextor and kingston do not compare to the samsung or crucial or OCZ.

OCZ has done some bad crap, the vertex 2/agility 2 were crap - all of the initial things have been fixed by now, although there's still quality control issues.

Ye I'm not sure why all the bad beef on OCZ, I've got over 30 256 AgilityIII 's running just fine. Albeit they're only 6 months old but the supplier is duty bound to a 3 year warranty, so if they're happy to do 3 years I guess all they shoudl be fine. Furthermore they're fast as f&*k!

Unfortunately long warranties don't help with missing data. Just ask all the people who bought Deskstars.

That's a weak argument. Even with "good reputation" drives people need to be backing up their data.

Don't forget to test your backups, and verify that you have sane data going to backup in the first place.

And even with all your backups, manufacturers need to use quality parts with "math" based engineering and QA. As far as anything I've read, OCZ uses bottom bin chips for their drives, and Intel and Samsung keep top bin flash from their own chip lines for their drives. Those other manufacturers took extra time coming to market by making sure their firmware works right every time, while OCZ crapped out something right away. OCZ customers got a horrible experience with long and useless warranty turnarounds. They were rewarded with seeing their friends buy a cheaper, bigger, and stable non-OCZ drive before their own was sorted out.

Unfortunately long warranties don't help with missing data. Just ask all the people who bought Deskstars.

That's a weak argument. Even with "good reputation" drives people need to be backing up their data.

Backups are nice, but the goal is to avoid needing them. Emergency replacement and restoration is not really what I buy hardware for, nor how I enjoy spending time with my computer. If it's not going to last five years or more, the manufacturer should pack up and go home.

Interesting. My first SSD recommendation is to find the cheapest Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4* at the capacity you need. Both of these are on sale often nowadays, particularly with the release of the Samsung 840/Pro.

My second recommendation is to avoid OCZ.

*Intel, Plextor and Kingston after those

I've been running OCZ Agility 3's lines of SSD for over a year without any issue. All my machines (6) have them as boot drives. My gaming machine has them for particular games too.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.